


are you from hawaii, because you've got fine-apple all over you

by Anonymous



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Restaurant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 19:41:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14879972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Banri flirts, Itaru flirts back, and Tsuzuru does not get paid enough to deal with this.





	are you from hawaii, because you've got fine-apple all over you

When Tsuzuru accepted the offer to work at Chin Chin’s Canteen, he’d been expecting plates dropped on his feet, hot oil splashed on his arms, and the occasional lobster launched at him from across the table. _This_ , however – this was not in his job description.

“With all due respect, chef,” he grits out, sounding not at all respectful, “there is no way I’m serving this to the customer.”

Head Chef Settsu – the _only_ chef, and also the owner, and thus Tsuzuru’s chief source of income – snorts. “Trust me, he’ll appreciate it.”

Tsuzuru looks again at the plate of chicken, which has been artfully arranged with both drumsticks in the air, dribbling some sort of viscous clear jelly from their ends. Handwritten in chili flakes around the border of the plate is a custom message for the lucky man sitting at table four: _I’d beat my drumstick against yours any day._

“I’m handing in my two weeks’ notice,” says Tsuzuru. His face is utterly devoid of emotion. Chef Settsu waves him off with the same dismissive attitude that makes Tsuzuru seriously suspicious of all the claims that everything at Chin Chin’s is made fresh-to-order. To be fair, Chef Settsu does appear to be cooking most of the time Tsuzuru is in the kitchen, but there’s no way someone can rank for thirteen mobile games at once whilst singlehandedly maintaining a restaurant with a two MANKAI flower rating unless they’re outsourcing the workload somehow.

Sighing, Tsuzuru balances the offending plate on one arm and a tray of steamed buns on the other, wincing when the motion makes the chicken drumsticks spurt more jelly. Tsuzuru isn’t sure how Chef Settsu even managed to make that happen.

“I drilled into the bone and injected them with chicken stock until they were half-bursting,” Chef Settsu purrs, as if reading Tsuzuru’s mind. “It’s such a waste to have such nice, hot, hard bones sitting there doing nothing, don’t you think?”

“This is sexual harassment,” Tsuzuru says in disbelief. “I’m going to file a complaint.”

“I’m just sharing my cooking techniques,” Chef Settsu calls after him. “You should feel grateful!”

Tsuzuru walks faster in response, welcoming the deafening crowd in the dining area with an enormous sense of relief. Table Four is a small table for two lined up against the far wall, but there’s still only one person sitting there at the moment. He’s slender, professional, in a neatly-pressed suit that slims his shoulders and accents his waist. Tsuzuru spares a moment to feel abject pity for the poor soul.

He sets the dishes down on the table as quickly as possible. Thankfully, the man doesn’t even seem to notice. He’s engrossed in his phone, muttering under his breath; Tsuzuru assumes he’s dealing with a difficult situation at work, or something. It’s a plight that Tsuzuru can definitely relate to.

“Your food, sir.”

The man glances up, irritation flitting briefly across his features. He smiles distractedly at Tsuzuru while his fingers continue tapping away at the phone screen. Task complete, Tsuzuru backs away from the table, almost tripping over himself in his haste to return to the kitchen.

Right before the sound of clanging pots deafens him once more, he catches a wisp of clear laughter coming from the table he’d just departed. Amazingly, impossibly, Chef Settsu’s idiocy has appealed to the customer’s clearly dysfunctional sense of humour.

In retrospect, Tsuzuru should have taken this as a warning.

 

-

 

“I _said_ ,” wastefully-handsome Chigasaki purrs, “that I’d like to pass my compliments to the chef.”

Tsuzuru wonders, not for the first time, what the job market is like in greater Tokyo right now. _Awful_ , his brain replies immediately. _As usual_. Even so, there’s bound to be a job he can take that doesn’t involve having to play errand boy to sexually-frustrated chefs and customers who only think with their dicks. “Absolutely, sir,” he says instead, resigning himself to the destruction of his personal morals for the sake of that sweet, sweet paycheck Head Chef Settsu leaves for him at the end of the week. “I’m sure he would be delighted to hear your praise in person.”

This is a notable deviation from his standard practice. Were he dealing with any other customer – even stern-looking Furuichi from _Flour Power_ , the not-so-aptly-named magazine infamous for its scathing restaurant reviews – he would smile, nod, and respectfully agree to convey their message to the appropriate party. Tsuzuru’s current approach is a defence mechanism, a desperate tactic cobbled together from the remains of his battered soul.

“Oh no, I couldn’t put him out like that,” protests Chigasaki, in a voice that makes it very obvious that he actually would like to put something of Chef Settsu’s out on display for his clearly dysfunctional eyes. “Can’t you just let it slip to him that he has a…marvellous talent for stuffing turkey? And the cauliflower soup was _bursting_ with flavour – I devoured it so fast I ended up spilling some of that creamy white goodness all over my jacket.”

Tsuzuru is a professional, and therefore will refrain from beating the customer over the head with his empty soup bowl.

“Make sure you say it word-for-word!” Chigasaki calls after him. A small, self-satisfied smirk has made its way onto his mouth, and Tsuzuru hates that his brain automatically jumps to the face Chef Settsu would make if he saw it. Why are good-looking guys always so _stupid_?

When he crashes unceremoniously into the kitchen, Chef Settsu is tossing noodles with startling ferocity. “That damned Hyodo’s gone and gotten himself a third star,” he tells Tsuzuru. His biceps are straining under his shirt, sweat beading on his forehead. Tsuzuru’s mind has been well and truly corrupted.

“His desserts are spectacular,” he says, looking away from Chef Settsu’s impressive physique. “Even Furuichi-san praises him regularly.”

“It’s just because he managed to snag an apprenticeship under Omi,” Chef Settsu seethes. “All his food tastes like it’s been dunked in sugar, then coated with marzipan, then rolled in more sugar. Can you believe we started our training at the same time and he still can’t make a proper croissant?”

“You may have mentioned this once or twice before,” Tsuzuru says, though he knows that this exact line has been repeated no less than eight times in the past four days alone. He doesn’t _actually_ want to get himself fired. Yet. “By the way, Chigasaki-san wanted to pass on a message.”

The noodles fly out of the wok and onto plates faster than Tsuzuru’s bank balance runs out on sales day at the supermarket. “Go on,” his boss says, voice trembling ever so slightly. “And don’t try to paraphrase this time; it’s not professional to misrepresent the customer.”

“The customer is misrepresenting his family and his workplace,” Tsuzuru mutters, but softly, so that he doesn’t provoke another lecture on this restaurant being a non-judgemental space, _yes, Tsuzuru, even to customers who want to tell the chef that his pork loins tasted as delicious as they looked_. He’s almost impressed by his ability to maintain a straight face while repeating each of Chigasaki’s cringeworthy lines back to Chef Settsu, whose eyes are suspiciously dark and dilated.

“Well,” says Chef Settsu, when Tsuzuru has finished, “I’d b-better prepare something special for him in return.” He swallows hard and wipes his hands on his apron, bumping his hip on the counter when he goes to garnish the noodles.

Tsuzuru doesn’t know what’s sadder –that he’s being forced to repeat unwholesome pickup lines on a regular basis at what is supposed to be a classy restaurant, or that his boss is being genuinely affected by them.

 

-

 

“Definitely the latter,” he decides not long after, when he arrives at work to find Chef Settsu attempting to butter bread while simultaneously tapping on his phone. “Chef, what are you doing?”

“Shut up,” Chef Settsu hisses. He elbows his phone screen and pushes it off the benchtop. “No! Tsuzuru, could you just stab that with your finger for a moment? It’s the last ten minutes of this event, and some _loser’s_ gone and gotten himself into second place between me and taruchi.”

Tsuzuru stares doubtfully at the screen, an explosion of pink and red hearts spawning from two juggling chibis. “So?”

“The _nerve_ of him,” his boss says, slamming the bread into the oven. “Second place is _mine_ – I gave up on first place for this event earlier in the week when taruchi-san had a day off, but how am I supposed to talk with him if he’s busy fighting this random instead of me?”

“Talk with who?” Tsuzuru asks, confused. Chef Settsu snatches his phone back and resumes tapping. “Sorry, I wasn’t aware you had a rivalry with anyone other than Chef Hyodo?”

“Patissier Hyodo,” corrects Chef Settsu absently, proving all of Tsuzuru’s suspicions that he does actually respect his arch-nemesis more than he lets on. “With Itaru-san, of course. We were going to celebrate crushing the fodder after close today, but if I don’t overtake this trashbag he’ll rub it in my face forever – not that I mind him rubbing stuff in my face, if you know what I – ”

“Do _not_ ,” Tsuzuru yelps, thrusting his finger in Chef Settsu’s face, “finish that sentence.” Then the rest of what Chef Settsu had said filters through his traumatised mind. “Wait, Itaru-san? Chigasaki Itaru-san? Regular customer and bane of my existence?”

“Hotter than my flambe and wicked fun to hang with? Yeah, what about him?”

“Since when were you on speaking terms?” Tsuzuru runs a hand through his hair. “Have you known each other the whole time?”

Chef Settsu blinks. “No, of course not. You remember that first time though, with the drumsticks?”

Unfortunately, Tsuzuru does.

“I saw he was playing BroWars, so I left my ID on the bottom of the plate and he sent me a PM cursing me out for making him whale more than he’d wanted to in the past ranking event.”

Tsuzuru couldn’t care less about BroWars right now. “You have ways to communicate with each other,” he says woodenly. “You’ve been using me as your go-between for _weeks_ now and all this time you could have just kept your bedroom talk to your private messages.”

“Yeah, but I don’t check my phone during work,” Chef Settsu says carelessly, even though he is still tapping away on his phone at this very instant. “Besides, it’s more fun this way. He gets this little smirk after he tells you what to say, you know? It’s cute.”

“You can hear what he tells me to say.”

Chef Settsu laughs. It’s amazing that he can see humour in this situation. Tsuzuru would love to be able to smile at his current situation, but he’s stuck facing the reality that he’s been used as a toy in his boss’ twisted idea of foreplay. “He’s been sitting in view of the kitchen entrance for a reason. I can just read his lips.”

Tsuzuru buries his face in his hands. “I would have picked the lobster,” he moans, thinking wistfully of all the stressors he had used to complain about, back when his life was peaceful and normal. Maybe he should apply to work at Patissier Hyodo’s restaurant. He could always take casual shifts there, see what it’s like.

“I see what you’re thinking, and I wouldn’t do it.” Chef Settsu places a hand on Tsuzuru’s shoulder. “Hyodo can’t help taking bites of everything he makes, so you have to replate things every five minutes. Besides, I pay better.”

At this point, Tsuzuru’s not sure how much he has left to lose. “……How much better?”


End file.
